The Masculine Epichttp://masculineepic.com
For The Worthy Seeking MoreMon, 19 Mar 2018 16:26:32 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.4https://i2.wp.com/masculineepic.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/cropped-sunking.jpg?fit=32%2C32The Masculine Epichttp://masculineepic.com
3232990666464 of The Best Video Games for Boyshttp://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/03/19/the-4-best-video-games-for-boys/
http://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/03/19/the-4-best-video-games-for-boys/#respondMon, 19 Mar 2018 16:26:32 +0000http://masculineepic.com/?p=2183We’ve recently gone over Tucker Carlson’s “Men in America” series, discussing how men can regain their pride and spirit. One of the big reasons why men are lost is because there’s little to fire their imagination and awaken within them the spirit to be outstanding and triumphant, with the problem being especially severe with the younger generation. More and more of popular culture is whitewashed with political correctness. Exposing yourself to it, let alone boys growing up, isn’t conducive to a strong spirit.

There are still worthy things out there. You just need to know where you can find them. Consider this the start of a series about the things in pop culture which can help inspire men and boys, or at least help them escape the politically correct garbage constantly flooding the airwaves.

Today the topic is video games. I’ve warned about these in the past, but young boys are going to play them. I haven’t paid attention to the industry for a while, so this will deal with classic games. These are timeless, so new generations will enjoy them as much as older ones. The list isn’t any specific order.

4. The Total War Series

The Total War Series, produced by The Creative Assembly (which now operates under Sega’s umbrella) is a combination of careful management and battlefield strategy. When I was 16 and 17, Rome: Total War was a staple of my free time. It was one of the ways I was exposed to Classical learning early on, since the game was full of quotes from the likes of Caesar, Cicero, Homer, Socrates, and so on, which I promptly went on to find out more about. Each unit and building also had an extensive summary of their historical significance, although the game had its share of inaccuracies.

Playing Rome: Total War provided a burst of energy, with commanding forces on the battlefield being a way to build pride (even if fleetingly). The battlefield aspect was balanced with careful management on the campaign map. How much do you tax a settlement? How do you manage the happiness of the population, especially a recently-conquered one? How do you ensure fertility and defend from invasion?

Did any of this help in real life? No. But they were fun questions to think about. The battles provided a rambunctiousness that’s especially lacking today. There are worse diversions for boys than playing the Total War games.

4. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six

I’m specifically talking about the computer games here, not the console ones.

Unlike other shooters, the Rainbow Six series wasn’t just about randomly waltzing into different rooms and blasting the first thing that came into focus. I found that out fast when I first started playing Rogue Spear in late 1999. Each course had a delicate situation that needed to be handled with care, like a hostage crisis. You were required to select the right personnel, weapons, and equipment. From there, you needed to formulate a careful tactical plan.

The Rainbow Six series requires players to think tactically and several steps ahead. It’s a fun way to grasp some of the nuances of strategy in general. Though most of that was inevitably lost on me, Rainbow Six is an ideal choice to get boys to think about things in new ways while not feeling like they’re doing any work.

3. Starcraft

Starcraft was one of the most revolutionary games of all time, perfecting the real time strategy genre. Unlike the Total War series, players don’t command units of troops, but individual ones which can be put into a unit. It’s a less realistic take on warfare, but Starcraft’s greatest strength is that it puts a great emphasis on combined arms strategy.

The units in the game are incredibly well-balanced, forcing players to pick a good strategy to suit their situation instead of simply relying on one class of overpowered unit. The battles force players to think outside the box and get creative, which is not instilled in today’s schools.

Playing video games like Starcraft can never be confused for a proper education, but boys can expect to be kept on their toes, thinking fast. There isn’t enough of that now.

1. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Every boy yearns for adventure. Every man still does. It’s why stories like The Odyssey still captivate the world so many centuries later. This sense of adventure and imagination needs to be explored and most media just doesn’t do it. The Legend of Zelda series gives players so much to do and a vast world to explore.

Adventure fires up imagination, which in turn brings ambition. It gets you in the habit of thinking big, which is always the first step. Repeat thought turns into action. Too much of modern media is cloistered into politically correct tropes. The Legend of Zelda series strips this away and leaves the world free for the player to explore. Not to mention, Ocarina of Time has a great story. The fights and the saving of the damsel in distress provided some of that rambunctious energy I mentioned earlier.

The saving of the damsel part of the story speaks to primal male desires, but this can translate into white knighting which needs to be avoided. Not enough boys are taught about that. I wasn’t.

]]>http://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/03/19/the-4-best-video-games-for-boys/feed/02183Conor Lamb vs. Rick Saccone Proves that People are Irrationalhttp://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/03/14/conor-lamb-vs-rick-saccone/
http://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/03/14/conor-lamb-vs-rick-saccone/#respondWed, 14 Mar 2018 15:52:06 +0000http://masculineepic.com/?p=2169I’ve mostly checked out of politics in the last year because I can’t stand the hysteria ginned up by the media anymore. The special election in Pennsylvania is interesting, though. While still too close to call, it looks like the Democrat, Conor Lamb will eke out a win in a heavily Republican district (one which Donald Trump won by almost 2 to 1) against his Republican rival, Rick Saccone.

The usual suspects will call this a referendum on President Trump and a predictor for November. Certainly, it’s not great news for the Republicans, but deeper, more ancient forces are at work here.

Longtime readers of The Masculine Epic will know that people almost never make decisions rationally. Emotion and primal instinct are what sell people on decisions. Logic only justifies them later. Rick Saccone vs. Conor Lamb is a good example of this truth.

The district is in western Pennsylvania, which is heavily Republican. So why is Rick Saccone, the Republican candidate, struggling so much? Simply put, Conor Lamb has him beat in pretty much everything that actually sells people on something. The ways people actually make those decisions when it comes to voting are explained in a neat 9 point list in Stumped.

Conor Lamb has more charisma. He’s not the most charismatic guy in the world, but it’s not a chore to listen to him. Listening to Rick Saccone is a cure for insomnia.

Reputation matters too. Conor Lamb is a former marine and a prosecutor. Rick Saccone is a professional politician, which people hate nowadays.

Finally, we can look at social proof. Keep in mind, I haven’t been paying too much attention to this thing, but Saccone has had issues raising money, right? That’s a good sign that people lack confidence in him. He needed Trump to bring some excitement to his campaign.

As far as I know, Lamb has had no fundraising issues.

There’s also an interesting twist in the race in that Conor Lamb essentially ran as a Republican even though he was a Democrat. He’s basically a relict Blue Dog Democrat, which is a species that is almost extinct. That’s what he says, anyway. His campaign rhetoric is a good way for him to remove doubts after the initial sale was made through the emotional factors I described above.

As a result of all of this, Conor Lamb currently leads Rick Saccone by a razor thin margin. Absentee ballots still need to be counted, but don’t be surprised when Conor Lamb wins. It looks like he’s persuaded just enough of the people that could be swayed to pull out a victory. It helped that “the resistance” is motivated because anger motivated better than happiness, and they have Trump to focus that anger on.

People are irrational. Persuasion matters. Policy doesn’t.

To find out how to sell to people’s emotions like Conor Lamb did, read Stumped.

]]>http://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/03/14/conor-lamb-vs-rick-saccone/feed/021695 Ways We Can Help Men in Americahttp://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/03/09/men-in-america/
http://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/03/09/men-in-america/#respondFri, 09 Mar 2018 20:49:47 +0000http://masculineepic.com/?p=2138A few nights ago, Tucker Carlson began airing a series about men in America. The coinciding with “Women’s History Month” was chosen deliberately. He laid out all the issues men are dealing with – suicide, falling behind in school and the economy, lower testosterone, etc. Jordan Peterson, one of the few academics that dares to deviate from dogma, joined him.

We’ve been talking about these issues for years, long before even people like Tucker Carlson began covering them. We know the problems. Has there ever been a concise list of solutions? I don’t think so. I’ll make the attempt here.

Note that these solutions are largely of the mental and spiritual variety. As Tucker pointed out, men in America have had their minds and spirits shot through with nonsense that drags them down. These demons must be exorcised to lay the foundation for other solutions.

1. The Return of a Classical Education

Jordan Peterson hinted at the importance of this. The education system has failed men by design. When not cramming facts that will be forgotten into students’ heads, the schools are brainwashing men and women alike about how evil masculinity is. No emphasis on morals or character development is given in the schools. It wasn’t during my time and it’s gotten much worse since then.

This is the first and foremost thing that needs to change. Men are isolated from their past. They’re deprived of any vision of how to be great in the future. They’re not imbued with any guide to a strong, proud, and moral character. The result is a shell of a man.

These were all the elements of a classical education. The Classics were taken out of the schools in the mid-20th century. It isn’t a surprise that since then, we’ve seen snowballing insanity in our society. Unfortunately, the Classics won’t be returning to the classroom anytime soon. It’s therefore up to us, the people, to reintroduce them to society, and not wait for some institution to do it for us.

People like Quintus Curtius are doing a good job with this with his translations of the likes of Cicero and Sallust, but much more needs to be done. Cicero’s On Duties in particular needs to be taught to the youth. If it won’t be taught in school, we’ll have to popularize it.

The Classics contain all the necessary elements to build a strong, proud, and ethical character. They inspire great deeds and the work to achieve them by emphasizing on the importance of memory and posterity. This in turn gives the individual a sense of purpose and accountability. All of this needs to be brought back.

Fathers should teach these things to their sons. They need to become more prominent in the culture too, through guerilla marketing and other methods that come straight from the people. These ideas have made some strides on the internet, but more effort needs to be made to popularize them.

It starts in the home, and like Jordan Peterson said, if you’re the parent of a child being taught the postmodern dogma, remove your child from the class.

2. Group Exercise and Diet

We can again use the Classics as a guide to helping men in America. Physical education has declined in schools over the past few decades. When I was going, we maybe had one or two hours a week. It’s gotten worse since then. It’s little wonder why obesity among children has increased.

Group exercise isn’t just important in children. Adults don’t get enough exercise either as a result of the office job economy. Group exercise is even rarer, since the dominant form is working out alone at the gym or in your home. It’s in contrast to the ancients, who instilled daily exercise, often of the group variety, in both children and adults, depending on the polity, of course. Sparta was different from Athens, for example, which was different from Rome. But the importance of exercise and group exercise was recognized. Children in Rome went outside the city to train with their fathers as part of their education.

This spirit needs to be brought back. Tucker Carlson mentioned the lowering of testosterone levels and their association with depression in men. Since testosterone increases with physical activity, is it any wonder that its decrease has led to lower testosterone levels, a possible result of which is the increased depression and suicide we see?

If the institutions won’t bring this back, then it’s up to the people to popularize it. Men in America should not only exercise, but get involved in group activities like the martial arts training you see above to solidify the work and hold themselves accountable. It also helps that such training is a tremendous confidence booster, which is one thing that men in America certainly need.

Also, diet needs to change, with men holding each other accountable. It’s time to kick soy out of America! Eat cruciferous vegetables to decrease false estrogens. Eat lean meats to increase testosterone. You are what you eat.

3. Brotherhood Organizations

Male-only spaces have been cannibalized over the past few decades of political correctness. The only prominent ones remaining are college fraternities. It’s no surprise that those have been under assault over the last few years, most notably with the infamous A Rape on Campus hoax. The desperate attempt to undermine these organizations is more surprising because of how ineffective they are. At best, they promote the obnoxious model of permissible masculinity that turns men into boys and gives boys no positive example to grow up to.

Instead, we need to promote something closer to the likes of the Templars and Hospitallers. These were organizations with missions to be carried out by pledged brothers. Hierarchy and rituals kept the men in these organizations motivated, active, and ready to prove themselves. The ethos fostered by these groups made a band of brothers.

In 21st century America, the structure and mission of these organizations would be different. The bonds of brotherhood and the purpose behind them are what would remain. This step is still only in the conception stage, but promoting the existence of these kinds of brotherhoods of men is vital in improving men’s confidence and quality of life. The support network they would provide can act as a stopgap if their members are failing, but that network could also help to encourage success in business, physical fitness, and more. They would promote the kind of community that has been lost due to the advancement of technology and political correctness.

4. Business Networks

There’s no better route to confidence and happiness than owning your own business. It’s what America is supposed to be all about. It’s also more important than ever for men to find independent ways to support themselves, given the “me too” hysteria now in full swing. Expect inquisitions in the workplace to heat up. I just saw a commercial for the new “Me Too Attorney” network. Lawsuits will soon come from simply looking at a woman the wrong way. Already in economic trouble, this is the last thing that men in America need. It’s imperative that business and other useful skills be passed to today’s struggling population so that they can make a good living and avoid inquisitions and witch hunts. The disappearance of jobs with guaranteed stable incomes has hurt men more than women.

Whether freelancing or starting a bigger business, promoting the skills, knowledge, and networks to create ways to make money independently is of vital importance. Many networks, like SCORE, exist for this purpose, but there isn’t one that caters to men in America who might be lost and need the guidance.

This is something the dissident sphere on the internet has talked about for a long time but progress hasn’t happened. There’s no infrastructure in place. It’s up to the people to create these kinds of networks, which can be linked with any fraternal or brotherhood organizations.

Talking about the solution is the first step to acting on it.

5. Change in Culture

Masculinity has been steadily stripped from culture in America. It must leave boys growing up confused as to what their purpose should be. It was present, but muted in my time. It must be much, much worse today. There are fewer masculine role models in the real world, but they’ve been taken out of the culture also.

We can’t rely on Hollywood to reverse this trend. Hollywood is a chief part of it.

Change in this area, like all others, comes from the grassroots. It’s up to us to create works of art and culture that emphasize the masculine virtues and the triumphs possible through tough quests. If we can’t rely on the institutions to create and promote things like The Odyssey, we must do so ourselves.

I’ve made the attempt with The Red War.

Before The Red War comes out, read Stumped. The knowledge of persuasion that you’ll get from it will make you more confident.

]]>http://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/03/09/men-in-america/feed/02138How To Make a Few Extra Hundred Dollars a Month Writing About Wrestlinghttp://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/03/03/how-to-make-a-few-extra-hundred-dollars-a-month-writing-about-wrestling/
http://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/03/03/how-to-make-a-few-extra-hundred-dollars-a-month-writing-about-wrestling/#respondSat, 03 Mar 2018 16:00:43 +0000http://masculineepic.com/?p=2114If you’re looking for a nice side hustle, writing about wrestling could be a good fit for you. It has a lot of viewers around the world, it’s easy to follow (though you might have to see a lot of stupid crap), and the subject matter is easy to write about since it doesn’t require any degree of research or high attention to detail.

Since I started doing it a few months ago, I’ve gotten around $800 extra dollars, or about $200 a month on average. For little work, it’s a lot of bang for your buck.

Getting Started

You’ll want a site that’s easy to sign up for and gets a lot of traffic. There are a few out there that fit that description, but Sportskeeda is the one I use, since you can sign up with just a click (hopefully through a burner gmail account). It also gets several million visitors a day, so there’s a lot of potential for your posts to earn. I would consider $100 a bad month. Twice that or more is easily doable.

Once you get started, you can begin writing immediately. The low barrier to entry means many articles are of dubious quality, but that gives you a chance to stand out.

Once signed up, you can write as little or as much as you want. Sometimes your posts can trend for days and you can get the appropriate passive income.

Slideshows usually make more money than single-page articles, so I suggest you use that format.

What to Write About

Some topics pay more than others. News articles, for example, make more than opinion posts, like “best matches,” for example. The problem is that the news articles are harder to obtain (since there’s only limited news stories) so you’ll probably write mostly opinion articles. These can trend too. I’ve made the bulk of my money from them.

The four major shows are Raw on Monday, SmackDown on Tuesday, 205 Live on Tuesday, and NXT on Wednesday. One drawback is that this is a lot of content to watch every week, especially when it isn’t good. You never know what you’ll get with WWE. It’s very hit or miss, and when it misses, it’s a slog to sit through.

You don’t need to watch all the episodes. It’s very possible to just read the results and write about them. The early part of the week is where you would make the bulk of your money writing about wrestling, as that’s when the shows come on. Every week, I write about the biggest winners and losers from the show that took place the night before, and that’s usually good for roughly $10 per post, though sometimes it can go higher. These posts are usually no more than 500 words.

Who you choose for your thumbnail is important on these articles. I would recommend one of the top stars in the promotion, like Braun Strowman or Roman Reigns. WWE’s YouTube channel is a useful metric. You can go there and see which stars have the largest numbers of views and choose that star as your thumbnail. If a legend returns to one of the shows, use the legend. When I chose Stone Cold Steve Austin as my thumbnail for Raw’s 25th Anniversary episode in January, I got about $30 for that particular article.

WWE also has a pay per view every month. Sportskeeda usually gives those pay per views their own section. This is an opportunity to make more money, as articles about the upcoming pay per view, posted in the appropriate section, usually do better than articles about the weekly shows. Writing about the matches or stories heading into the pay per views is a good way to get more eyeballs on your posts. Now would be an optimal time to do so, since WrestleMania, the biggest wrestling event of the year, is coming up.

If you want to write about classic wrestling and the stars and matches of yesteryear, you can do that too. Again, now would be an optimal time to do so, since WrestleMania has a lot of history.

How Long Should You Spend?

The idea here shouldn’t be to spend too much time on this, as it’s supposed to be a profitable side hustle. More time doesn’t necessarily equal more money. Since the subject matter is easy, you shouldn’t need to spend more than 20 minutes writing a typical article, especially if you’re coming across a news story. If you’re spending more than that, you’re spending too much time, unless you have a lengthy countdown article.

Why You Should Consider Doing It

It’s very simple – you get paid a good amount of extra money a month for doing jack. Just follow the results, watch some matches, and get paid. It’s a good deal for so little work.

]]>http://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/03/03/how-to-make-a-few-extra-hundred-dollars-a-month-writing-about-wrestling/feed/02114How to Make Money Like John D. Rockefellerhttp://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/02/26/how-to-make-money-like-john-d-rockefeller/
http://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/02/26/how-to-make-money-like-john-d-rockefeller/#respondMon, 26 Feb 2018 18:20:50 +0000http://masculineepic.com/?p=2105The rise of Standard Oil fundamentally changed human life. On the back of this success, John D. Rockefeller became the richest man in history. Standard Oil cleared up a chaotic early oil industry and transformed it into the most important in the world economy. In doing so, John D. Rockefeller used tactics that would be illegal today, but his business strategy offers valuable lessons to any aspiring entrepreneur.

Standard Oil’s success can be attributed to five pillars – superior organization, superior financing in service of establishing economies of scale, supremacy in transport, finding efficiency wherever possible, and smart dealings to bring competitors into the fold. The story of these strategies is told in Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller.

Organization

Rockefeller’s company was one that allowed individual initiative to flourish. Its executives weren’t micromanagers:

To orchestrate such a gigantic operation, he had to delegate authority, and part of the Standard Oil gospel was to train your subordinate to do your job. As Rockefeller instructed a recruit, “Has anyone given you the law of these offices? No? It is this: nobody does anything if he can get anybody else to do it…as soon as you can, get some one whom you can rely on, train him in the work, sit down, cock up your heels, and think out some way for the Standard Oil to make some money.” True to this policy, Rockefeller tried to extricate himself from the intricate web of administrative details and dedicate more of his time to broad policy decisions.

The kind of freedom provided to employees allowed the company to adapt quickly to new situations. There was also a policy of allowing each employee to argue for a raise in front of the executive committee once a year. Additionally, employees were paid above average wages.

Rockefeller wouldn’t tolerate any hint of unionization, but employees were kept happy enough that this never occurred. This harmony was present among the organization’s executives as well:

Rockefeller placed a premium on internal harmony and tried to reconcile his contending chieftains. A laconic man, he liked to canvass everyone’s opinion before expressing his own and then often crafted a compromise to maintain cohesion. He was always careful to couch his decisions as suggestions or questions. Even in the early days, he had lunched daily with brother William, Harkness, Flagler, and Payne to thrash out problems. As the organization grew, he continued to operate by consensus, taking no major initiative opposed by board members. Because all ideas had to meet the supreme test of unanimous approval among strong-minded men, Standard Oil made few major missteps. As Rockefeller said, “We made sure that we were right and had planned for every contingency before we went ahead.”

Other companies weren’t organized so efficiently from top to bottom and as such found themselves unable to compete.

Don’t quibble on costs if they help your strategic position

Standard Oil was the first modern corporation. John D. Rockefeller organized his firm to produce in bulk so that it would be able to accrue more resources and sell below its competitors. Rockefeller was famous for avoiding Wall Street in later years, but he had a good relationship with banks in his early career and was a frequent borrower. This was done so that he could build top of the line plants that wouldn’t need frequent repairs and could outproduce rival refineries, most of which in the early days were low-quality amateur operations. The difference between Standard’s operation versus the independent refiners allowed the former to get a clear advantage:

What made an expeditious shutdown of outmoded rivals vital to Rockefeller was that he had borrowed heavily to build gigantic plants so that he could drastically slash his unit costs. Even his first partner, Maurice Clark, remembered that ‘the volume of trade was what he always regarded as of paramount importance.’ Early on, Rockefeller realized that in the capital-intensive refining business, sheer size mattered greatly because it translated into economies of scale. Once, describing the ‘foundation principle’ of Standard Oil, he said it was the ‘theory of originators…that the larger the volume the better the opportunities for the economies, and consequently the better the opportunities for giving the public a cheaper product without…the dreadful competition of the late 60’s ruining the business.’ During his career, Rockefeller cut the unit costs of refined oil almost in half, and he never deviated from this gospel of industrial efficiency. – pg. 150

These operations allowed Standard Oil to produce kerosene so cheaply that it could sell below the production costs of other refineries and still earn a profit, which induced many refiners to sell their plants and join Rockefeller. Those that refused to sell and come into Standard Oil wouldn’t be able to compete with the company’s gigantic resources and, thanks to them, elasticity in price-setting. John D. Rockefeller borrowed a lot of money to make this happen. He had the stomach for it because he knew just how enormous the benefit for the money would ultimately be.

He also borrowed a lot of money to buy up refineries, but this borrowing was worth it, as in short order he would gain control of most of Cleveland’s refineries. This so-called “Cleveland Massacre” set the stage for the company to dominate the market at a rapid pace.

John D. Rockefeller borrowed a lot early on, but did it for his strategic purposes, which he knew would put him in position to pay the money back. He never borrowed for frivolous purposes or without a well thought out plan that had a good chance of being successful. Establishing economies of scale is always vital in business and he had no problem with borrowing to get it.

Become supreme in transport

Each industry has crucial areas that bind it together – some ingredient needed to make the final product, for instance. Transport is a crucial area that binds every industry together and Standard Oil was keen to control as much of it in the petroleum industry as it could.

This infamously included collusion with the railroads for rebates on freight. While Standard Oil would get kickbacks from the railroads, competitors would have to ship their barrels of oil under a much more expensive price and so would never be able to compete with the petroleum giant’s prices.

But the company’s dominance didn’t just come through railroads. John D. Rockefeller recognized the importance of pipelines early on and constructed them to move oil from the producing regions to refining centers. This further consolidated Standard’s control of the industry.

In moving product, tank cars superseded barrels as the preferred method of shipping on railroads. Though pipelines would eventually supersede the tank cars, they were crucial in providing stability to oil transport in the early years of the industry, as barrels leaked. Standard Oil manufactured enough tank cars to retain a decisive advantage. These cars were used as a strong negotiating tool and weapon to keep the railroads in line.

Still uneasy at the specter of the oil fields drying up, the railroads shrank from investments in custom-made facilities for handling oil, worried that this specialized equipment might someday be rendered worthless. Exploiting this fear, Rockefeller worked out a clever bargain with the Erie Railroad in April 1874. The railroad would transfer control of its Weehawken, New Jersey terminal to Standard Oil if Standard met two conditions: First, it would have to outfit the rail yards with modern apparatuses that would help to expedite oil shipments to New England and the South; second, it would have to ship 50 percent of its western refinery output over Erie tracks. For Rockefeller, the arrangement promised multiple advantages, for he not only received preferential rates from Erie but could also chart the oil movements of competitors across the country. He could even block the export of rivals’ oil – an option that, having made this huge investment, he freely exercised. As he argued, “I know of no parallel case in other branches of business where the competitor felt injured because he could not use his rival’s capital and facilities for his own advantage and the disadvantage of the owner of the capital and facilities.”

As the owner of almost all the Erie and New York Central tank cars, Standard Oil’s position grew unassailable: At a moment’s notice, it could crush either railroad by threatening to withdraw its tank cars. It also prodded the railroads into granting favors for tank cars not enjoyed by the small refiners who shipped by barrel. For instance, railroads levied a charge for the return of empty barrels, while tank cars traveled free on the return route from the East Coast to the Midwest refineries. Tank car clients also received the exact same leakage allowance received by barrel shippers, even though the tanks cars didn’t leak – which effectively allowed Standard Oil to carry 62 gallons gratis in every tank car.

When the Pennsylvania Railroad went to war with Rockefeller’s company, he manufactured another 600 tank cars to more easily handle the increased volume he would give the Erie and New York Central Railroads as the Pennsylvania would see decreased revenues.

In controlling all these methods of transport, Rockefeller made his company the supreme arbiter of the industry, as all competitors or antagonists would need to go through his web to even get to market.

Find efficiency wherever possible

John D. Rockefeller was a notorious penny pincher. He made his own children go over their account books with a fine-toothed comb. He wasn’t averse to spending money for good causes, but he made sure that every penny was spent in the best possible way.

One such way that he found savings was in tin cans:

With a talent for seeing things anew, Rockefeller could study an operation, break it down into component parts, and devise ways to improve it. In many ways, he anticipated the efficiency studies of engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor. Regarding each plant as infinitely perfectible, he created an atmosphere of ceaseless improvement. Paradoxically, the mammoth scale of operations encouraged close attention to minute detail, for a penny saved in one place might then be multiplied a thousandfold throughout the empire. In the early 1870s, Rockefeller inspected a Standard plant in New York City that filled and sealed five-gallon tin cans of kerosene for export. After watching a machine solder caps to the cans, he asked the resident expert: “How many drops of solder do you use on each can?” “Forty,” the man replied. “Have you tried thirty-eight?” Rockefeller asked. “No? Would you mind having some sealed with thirty-eight and let me know?” When 38 drops were applied, a small percentage of cans leaked – but none at 39. Hence, 39 drops of solder became the new standard instituted at all Standard Oil refineries. “That one drop of solder,” said Rockefeller, still smiling in retirement, “saved $2500 the first year; but the export business kept on increasing after that and doubled, quadrupled – became immensely greater than it was then; and the saving has gone steadily along, one drop on each can, and has amounted since to many hundreds of thousands of dollars.

John D. Rockefeller also made sure to find as many uses as he could for all the byproducts of the oil that his company refined:

Rockefeller performed many similar feats, fractionally reducing the length of staves or the width of iron hoops without weakening a barrel’s strength. He was never a foolish penny pincher, however; for example, he saved on repairs by insisting that Standard build only solid, substantial plants, even if that meant higher start-up costs. He also tried to use all of the fractions refined from the crude oil. During its first two years, Standard Oil had dealt largely in kerosene and naphtha. Then, in 1874, the company branched out into petroleum by-products, selling paraffin wax for chewing gum and residual oil tar and asphalt for road building. Before long, the company was manufacturing lubricants for railroads and machine shops, as well as candles, dyes, paints, and industrial acids. In 1880, Standard Oil took over the Chesebrough Manufacturing Company in New Jersey in order to strengthen its sales of petroleum jelly.

The only exception to this early on was with the fraction of refined oil called gasoline. In those days, no one had any idea what to do with it.

The use of these byproducts and the savings that John D. Rockefeller found in his careful examination of his company, allowed Standard Oil to consolidate even further its advantage over competitors and its dominance of the industry.

Don’t crush your competitors – hire them

In establishing his monopoly, John D. Rockefeller knew that he needed to preserve at least a semblance of competition. He also didn’t want to antagonize the owners of other refineries. He wanted to bring them into his own company. Viewing Standard Oil almost as a church, he regarded the company as doing right in the world by stabilizing the petroleum industry.

Whether by chance or design, Rockefeller’s 1872 business papers have vanished, and we aren’t privy to his thoughts during these crucial negotiations. But in later years, he was a fair-minded bargainer who often paid too much for properties that served a strategic purpose. Indeed, his papers are chock-full of lamentations about how he overpaid for properties. When it came to mergers, he didn’t fight for the last dollar and tried to conclude matters cordially. Since he aimed to convert competitors into members of his cartel and often retained the original owners, he preferred not to resort to naked intimidation. As Rockefeller said, he and his colleagues weren’t “so short-sighted as to antagonize these very men whom they were eager to come into a close and profitable relationship with them.”

Standard’s corporate structure essentially allowed other refineries to pretend that they were still independent, when in actuality, these refineries and their owners were part of its gigantic machine. The goal wasn’t to crush them, but bring them in if possible, with lucrative offers of the company’s stock which would inflate many times over in value. These inducements proved too good to pass up.

Conclusion

John D. Rockefeller followed these strategies to untold success. Always keep an eye out for these things in your own field.

Yet, there were personal qualities that also ensured his success, chief among them his persuasiveness. He used many of the same techniques you’ll find in Stumped, because time doesn’t change how people respond to persuasion.

]]>http://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/02/26/how-to-make-money-like-john-d-rockefeller/feed/021055 Game Lessons from Robert Greene’s 33 Strategies of Warhttp://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/02/21/5-game-lessons-from-robert-greenes-33-strategies-of-war/
http://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/02/21/5-game-lessons-from-robert-greenes-33-strategies-of-war/#respondWed, 21 Feb 2018 21:29:34 +0000http://masculineepic.com/?p=2039Robert Greene is famous for his books on seduction. The Art of Seduction is a self-descriptive title and The 48 Laws of Power often deals with the subject as well, since power and seduction go hand-in-hand.

But it’s another book of his, The 33 Strategies of War, that arguably provides the best game advice of all his works.

This isn’t only because of the classical application of strategy which is detailed in the book, but because an entire section of it deals with something he calls “self-directed warfare.” This is an application of strategy to conquering yourself – your insecurities, weaknesses, desires that could lead you astray, and turning your thoughts into focus and action, all of which are crucial in any game setting. In the arts of seduction and warfare, the first thing you must do is conquer your own weaknesses, and The 33 Strategies of War will help with that.

The book is a long one, but well worth the read, and the following strategies will help to improve your game.

1. Abide by the 6 fundamental ideals of strategy

Look at things as they are, not as your emotions color them.

Judge people by their actions.

Depend on your own arms (in other words, depend on the faculties of your own mind and ingenuity – external resources can be taken from you, but never your cleverness, courage, or energy).

Worship Athena, not Ares (your interest is in results and pragmatism, not fits of passion).

Elevate yourself above the battlefield (think strategically, not tactically – everything you do should be purposed with achieving your long-term objectives).

Spiritualize your warfare (you go to war with your own weaknesses constantly, welcoming the opportunity to improve as a warrior).

All of these concepts are things you’ll encounter at sites like Return of Kings, and for good reason. Robert Greene goes over them in more detail, with clearer examples than I’ve seen anywhere else.

2. Don’t fight the last war

What weighs us down is usually the mistakes or ill-experiences of the past. These cause us to lose confidence. For instance, when I was starting, it was terrifying for me to approach women, simply because I didn’t have much experience doing it, and this lack of experience in turn dictated my future actions. I didn’t approach because I didn’t believe I could because I had little experience.

But in this, I was fighting the last war. I was letting the past set the future in stone. With a few tries and successes, I was on my way, and this fear regressed quickly. Once I turned my attention to the present, things looked brighter.

The mistake of fighting the last war applies to your successes just as much as your failures. The same routine won’t work every time. Get too caught up in what’s worked for you in the past and you’ll lose sight of what’s required in the present. Robert Greene says:

Never take it for granted that your past successes will continue into the future. Actually, your past successes are your biggest obstacle: every battle, every war, is different, and you cannot assume that what worked before will work today. You must cut yourself loose from the past and open your eyes to the present. Your tendency to fight the last war may lead to your final war.

Each interaction must be treated differently. Men like to organize things into systems, but this can set us back in the game. Seduction isn’t a logical process. Greene goes further:

What makes us go astray in the first place is that we are unattuned to the present moment, insensitive to the circumstances. We are listening to our own thoughts, reacting to things that happened in the past, applying theories and ideas that we digested long ago but that have nothing to do with our predicament in the present.

Understand: the greatest generals, the most creative strategists, stand out not because they have more knowledge but because they are able, when necessary, to drop their preconceived notions and focus intensely on the present moment.

3. Don’t lose your presence of mind

Understand: presence of mind is the ability to detach yourself, to see the whole battlefield, the whole picture, with clarity.

The game is an emotional experience and your thoughts will be clouded. Fear is the most prominent emotion – fear of the approach, fear to escalate, etc. In these stressful situations, most people see problems everywhere and defeat in the smallest setback, Greene explains.

The answer to this fear is to be more aggressive. Fear (particularly in this situation) is mostly an illusion based on the unknown. Because of this dreadful feeling, you’ll conjure up scenarios that are unrealistic, but will feel more important because you’re paying attention to them. People falsely believe that whatever they’re paying attention to is automatically the most important thing and failure to control this cognitive bias will lead you down a dark road. The best way to compensate for this is to divert your attention elsewhere.

The 33 Strategies of War cites the example of the famous Admiral Nelson:

The moment he entered battle, he ratcheted up his aggressive impulses. Where other sea lords worried about casualties, the wind, changes in the enemy’s formation, he concentrated on his plan. Before battle no one strategized or studied his opponent more thoroughly. (That knowledge helped Nelson to sense when the enemy was ready to crumble.) But once the engagement began, hesitation and carefulness were dropped.

4. The intelligence strategy

The target of your strategies should be less the army you face than the mind of the man or woman who runs it.

Of all the strategies provided in the book, this one was the most insightful, and has an important application in your game. If there’s one thing that stands out about myself it’s that my ramble game is very good, but I often overpower the conversation, which doesn’t let her invest enough in it. Not long before reading this, I read a modern classic on rhetoric, Verbal Judo, the central message of which was that the most important tool of verbal persuasion is the ability to empathize – to see through the eye of another, and to commune with that perspective. The two books gave me a new viewpoint on how to improve my day game.

The most important objective in the campaign, Greene says, is the opponent’s mind. In warfare, if you can degrade and destroy the mind of your enemy, physical concerns become secondary. In seduction, the goal is the opposite – to commune with the mind of the object of your affections and get closer to a single-mindedness that an ideal relationship would have.

5. Always have an exit strategy

When beginning any relationship, it’s imperative to have an endgame in sight. Is this a short term relationship, a long term one, or are there red flags flying all over the place telling you there should be none at all?

The warning of proceeding without an exit strategy is made clear:

The worst way to end anything–a war, a conflict, a relationship–is slowly and painfully. The costs of such an ending run deep: loss of self-confidence, unconscious avoidance of conflict the next time around, the bitterness and animosity left breeding—it is all an absurd waste of time. Before entering any action, you must calculate in precise terms your exit strategy. How exactly will the engagement end, and where it will leave you? If the answers to those questions seem vague and full of speculation, if success seems all too alluring and failure somewhat dangerous, you are more than likely taking a gamble. Your emotions are leading you into a situation that could end up a quagmire.

There have been too many articles to count on this site on the dangers of choosing the wrong women to get involved with. In this age of mass hysteria where asking a woman out on a date can now be construed as “sexual misconduct,” this strategy is especially important.

The game is often about what you don’t do. Always have an exit strategy with any interaction.

]]>http://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/02/21/5-game-lessons-from-robert-greenes-33-strategies-of-war/feed/02039Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr: Reviewhttp://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/02/15/titan-the-life-of-john-d-rockefeller-review/
http://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/02/15/titan-the-life-of-john-d-rockefeller-review/#respondFri, 16 Feb 2018 03:18:02 +0000http://masculineepic.com/?p=2098When you think about the rapacious capitalism of the Gilded Age, one name comes to mind above all others: John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil.

He was no more unscrupulous than his contemporaries. In fact, he might even have been less so. No labor crisis occurred during his tenure at Standard Oil, no strikes. Workers were paid above average wages. Prices for petroleum products were usually low – it was his successor who kept prices high. Why then, does he have such a notorious reputation to this day? How did he acquire his historic fortune, at what price did it come, and was he able to recover his image?

These are the questions asked in Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. This is a long book at almost 700 pages, but it covers Rockefeller’s the entire life. If you’re strictly interested in his business career, which was my primary motivation in buying the book, you might be disappointed, since about half of it covers his lengthy retirement, but there is an upside. From beginning to end, you find out the systems that John D. Rockefeller used to make himself history’s most successful capitalist, and also how he was able to maintain such a strong mental fortitude to keep him focused and heedless of criticism. Where most people can’t take their critics and pay too much attention to them, John D. Rockefeller was paying attention to other things like making money.

The Ingredients of Success

When examining historical titans, it’s always useful to look at their backgrounds and determine if they acquired the ingredients of success early on. If so, does it imply that you need to get them early to be a success in your adulthood? In Rockefeller’s case, it’s clear that several crucial ingredients of his stunning success were acquired early.

John D. Rockefeller was the second child and first son of William Avery (known as “Big Bill”), and Eliza Rockefeller. Though not a pauper, John D. grew up in a household that always teetered on the edge of a cliff. “Big Bill” Rockefeller was a notorious conman and would leave his family for months at a time, treading a wide territory in the selling of his wares to evade authorities. This left him being raised by his mother, Eliza, who was a devout Baptist.

This upbringing had long-lasting effects on Rockefeller, some good, some bad. He was haunted by his father’s example and determined to be as different from “Big Bill” as possible. Eliza’s devout Baptism was useful to John D. because it imbued him with a great sense of righteousness. He was always convinced that what he was doing was right, making it easy for him to accept conflict and criticism. This trait paid dividends, especially in the famous lawsuits Standard Oil got itself involved in. John D. Rockefeller was a model witness for the defense. He simply wouldn’t pay his critics any heed, because he knew they were wrong.

Eliza was a descendant of Puritans, and her devout Baptism imbued the Protestant work ethic into her son. He had to work in menial ways to survive in those early days, as his father dragged the family from dinky town to dinky town, moving his con jobs out further west. The result was that John D. learned as he grew up and by experience, not with a fancy education. He studied practical subjects at a small commercial college and then got to work as a bookkeeper.

The chapters about Rockefeller’s early life are easily some of the most compelling in Titan. Yet, that’s where things only begin to heat up.

Standard Oil

It took a few things to form Standard Oil. Most notable of them all, though, was an unswerving faith in the early petroleum industry. At the time, the only oil fields in the world were located in western Pennsylvania, centered on Titusville. Everyone knew that the oil there could only last so long. With no apparent alternatives in that crucial decade of the 1870s, speculation was rampant that the industry wouldn’t long survive. Rockefeller, though, charged ahead with his plans for a massive company that would dominate the industry for the long term, famously saying to the doubters: “the Lord will provide.” Clearly, his Baptist upbringing and unswerving faith in himself and God’s bounty was instrumental not only in his own success, but in transforming the world.

The doubts about the future in those early years only contributed to a state of anarchy in that was embroiling the petroleum business.

The infant industry that John D. Rockefeller decided to enter in the 1860s was unstable. after a rapid rise during the Civil War, prices rose and fell rapidly. Most refineries were ramshackle affairs run by amateurs and they were taking losses. The effect of this was to ultimately drag prices down so low that everyone in the industry would take a loss. It was a classic collective action problem. By wanting to survive as long as possible for themselves, the ramshackle refineries threatened to topple the professional ones, such as the one run by Rockefeller and his partners in Cleveland. In many respects, John D. Rockefeller came to the same conclusion that Thomas Hobbes had in addressing this nasty state of nature. The petroleum industry required a strong sovereign and the name “Standard Oil” is indicative of this mindset.

Rockefeller’s business methods (which are important enough to warrant their own post) are commonly seen as devious. But when reading about the state of the oil industry in those crucial years, one has to wonder whether his tactics were entirely wrong. He ruthlessly drove competitors out of business, but this was preferably done by absorbing them into Standard Oil and making them far richer. When reading Titan, it’s hard not to agree with the tone of this speech The Men Who Built America, which dramatized the decision of Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States.

Standard Oil’s tactics would be illegal today, but they weren’t in the crucial years of the 1870’s and 80’s when the company became the industry’s titan, and they succeeded in stabilizing it. It should also be noted that the other refiners were happy to use the same tactics the hated Standard Oil used whenever they were able.

Ultimately, it forced a correction from the state to ensure opportunity for everyone through fair competition. The trustbusting crusade that Standard Oil prompted was successful, though that success has now been threatened by the likes of Facebook, Google, and Amazon.

In the rise of Standard Oil, John D. Rockefeller used underhanded tactics that would become illegal as a result of his own success, but his business morals (or lack thereof) were standard for his time. It was an era full of schemes to “restrain trade” in a free market. Rockefeller’s were simply the most successful.

And yet, for all his sins, he wound up leaving the world a better place.

“The World’s First Citizen”

When he died in 1937 at the age of 97, one of his famous enemies wrote:

Next to our beloved President, he was our country’s biggest citizen. It was he who visualized as did no other man the use to which great wealth could wisely be put. Because of him the world is a better place in which to live. Blessed be the memory of World Citizen No. 1.

This was well-put, because when reading Titan, you’ll find that more than any other individual, John D. Rockefeller is responsible for the creation of the modern world. Standard Oil was the prototype for the modern corporation that dominates the world economy.

In his philanthropies, he also created the standard that modern non-profits follow. Before him, the wealthy usually gave random gifts to the poor or subsidized the arts. Rockefeller’s charities were organized on scientific lines for the accomplishment of specific goals, none more so than his medical and educational philanthropies. In everything from the eradication of hookworm to the founding of the University of Chicago, Rockefeller’s money was involved. It’s staggering how much of modern education and medicine stem directly from the wealth this titan generated from the chaotic start of the petroleum industry.

You’re feeling the effects of Rockefeller’s influence in the products you buy, the doctors you go to, and even the museums you visit. Never has one fortune affected the world on such a profound level. As the title proclaims, he truly is a titan and must be regarded as one of the most influential human beings to ever live.

Rapacious and generous, stodgy in his younger years and jovial in his twilight, supremely influential but never boastful, he truly was one of a kind, and his name will surely live on forever.

This was a masterful work, a must for any entrepreneur. If you want to learn from one of history’s Olympians (and avoid his mistakes), I highly recommend Titan.

]]>http://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/02/15/titan-the-life-of-john-d-rockefeller-review/feed/02098Blue Gender: Reviewhttp://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/02/09/blue-gender-review/
http://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/02/09/blue-gender-review/#respondFri, 09 Feb 2018 16:47:45 +0000http://masculineepic.com/?p=2090In the year 2017, a scourge of giant insects took planet Earth by storm, destroying human civilization and forcing a chosen few survivors to flee to space. Those unfortunate enough to not have been chosen to go to space live in a post-apocalyptic world, where they can be dismembered by the monstrous insects, known as the Blue, at any time.

Life is hell.

The key to defeating the insects might be a group of people who came down with a mysterious genetic mutation that were put into a state of suspended animation in the year 2009.

This is where Blue Gender starts. We see one of these so-called “Sleepers,” Yuji Kaido, inadvertently awoken by a recovery squad. Now face to face with this terrifying world, he meets one of the soldiers from space, Marlene Angel, and there they begin a wild adventure.

Sci-Fi Horror Done Right

Blue Gender is a mecha-based series that does its best to shock the viewer, particularly in the first story arc, which is the best one. There, you see the squad sent to recover Sleepers get whittled down in endless Blue attacks, leaving Yuji and Marlene the only survivors as they make their way from Japan, to Korea, and then all the way to an outpost near Moscow.

Encounter after horrifying encounter with the Blue follows them. Yuji is forced to adapt quickly to this world overrun by giant predatory insects.

Each fight in Blue Gender, especially early on, is action-packed with a psychological edge. Each fight is unique as the Blue shock your senses with how horrible they are. The more squeamish among you might act like Yuji did in those early episodes.

Yet, that isn’t the strongest part of the series.

Shifting Roles

As they run away from the Blue across half of Asia, the shocked Yuji slowly begins to accept the world he’s in and trains to fight, while Marlene’s coldness is melted by her charge. When given the chance to choose between a “normal” life with nomads on the steppes, who haven’t been harassed by the Blue, and journeying to space with Marlene, Yuji ultimately chooses her.

Aside from the action, the characterization is what drives this show. In the journey on Earth, Marlene Angel was a cold, ruthless warrior who considered all lives, including her own, expendable in the fight against the Blue. But just as Marlene begins to find her humanity, it’s Yuji that now loses it.

Yuji’s condition, called the “B cells” might be the key to defeating the Blue. The B cells, when activated in a special mech, give Yuji and other “Sleepers” superhuman strength, reaction time, healing, and even a form of precognition when facing the Blue…but that last part is because the Blue is actually the evolved B cell itself.

This means that as Yuji fights, he becomes steadily more like the Blue than a human being. The higher-ups don’t realize that their prized Sleepers, the weapon with which they want to reclaim the planet from the Blue, are as dangerous as the insects themselves.

The only one that realizes that danger is the lead scientist in space, Seno Miyagi, who informs Marlene Angel of what’s happening with her “friend.” Miyagi says that they need to remove the high council from power to stop the Sleepers from going out of control, as they would never change their plans willingly. Marlene agrees.

A nice touch of the Blue Gender series is that we don’t just see the horror that Earth has become, but the submerging of any freedom for those supposedly fortunate enough to escape from it. The survivors in space live under a regime where any individuality is subsumed to the “wisdom” of the high council and its mission to retake Earth from the Blue. There’s no real freedom. It’s a military government where everything is strictly regulated. Marlene Angel was expected to simply forget Yuji Kaido despite their epic journey on Earth and only managed to stay with him by, for the first time, disregarding orders, as well as a stroke of good fortune.

The cost of reclaiming the planet was never considered by the high council – but Miyagi begins to wonder whether all this is worth it. When the Sleepers go out of control, he decides it isn’t, stages, a coup, and overthrows the high council.

To make a long story short, Marlene was able to snap Yuji out of his berserk rage (just as he had once melted her ice), but another Sleeper nearly destroyed humanity’s last outpost in space. The high council thought the Sleepers would be a panacea in taking the planet back and they were too blinded to think of the drawbacks.

Conclusion

Blue Gender does decline after Yuji regains his humanity thanks to Marlene. We see convoluted take on the Gaia hypothesis with an anticlimactic ending. The last two episodes resemble more New Age mumbo jumbo than the sci-fi horror and subtle character development that was such a hallmark of the series. But there is one last great fight.

These are the kinds of fights you’ll see often in the series, and if you’re a fan of the post-apocalyptic genre, sci-fi, horror, or just good fights, you’ll enjoy it. What sets it apart from other series is the epic journeys that Yuji and Marlene go on and their development, which is superior to many similar shows.

Finally, if you just want to see some good fights, you won’t go wrong here.

]]>http://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/02/09/blue-gender-review/feed/02090Success Doesn’t Come Gradually, But in a Sudden Burst After Long Stagnationhttp://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/02/04/breakthroughs-dont-come-gradually-but-after-long-stagnation/
http://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/02/04/breakthroughs-dont-come-gradually-but-after-long-stagnation/#respondSun, 04 Feb 2018 16:26:58 +0000http://masculineepic.com/?p=2082At the turn of the 20th century, medicine wasn’t far advanced. Things had gotten better, true. The advances of the 19th century had taken it from the realm of bloodletting and leeches, but it was still a field steeped in mysticism. Debates between homeopaths and allopaths dominated the discipline. The state of medical education was terrible. Medicine still had a long way to go to become the field that we know today.

In 1902, a zoologist by the name of Dr. Charles Wardell Stiles journeyed through the Southern United States with a nuanced theory – the “poor whites” of the region, so often thought to be a dumb, lazy class of people by virtue of bad breeding, were actually suffering from hookworm. This was based on previous work in Puerto Rico, where an army surgeon named Dr. Ashford discovered that poor people on the island were suffering from hookworm and not infected with malaria, as had previously been thought.

Stiles took a microscope and criss-crossed the South, examining feces. Through this inglorious work, he made the monumental discovery he’d expected. On schedule, he found hookworm eggs everywhere he looked. Stiles was overjoyed, because curing hookworm was cheap and painless. All he needed to do now was get the word out so the medicine could be supplied. Millions of people would be freed from a debilitating burden that up to then had been thought essential and incurable.

But as is so often the case with visionary breakthroughs, Stiles met with an avalanche of ridicule and criticism. No one took him seriously and his plans for a campaign to tackle the problem went nowhere. For years, he tried in vain.

Then, by chance, President Roosevelt appointed him in 1908 to an obscure commission. One of his fellow commissioners was Walter Hines Page, who was an associate of John D. Rockefeller and part of his burgeoning philanthropic empire, which included the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. Page was intrigued when Stiles told him about his hookworm discovery.

The wheels were soon in motion. Stiles had meetings with several key people in Rockefeller’s orbit. After hearing about it all, the Standard Oil tycoon and most hated man in America was sold. He would donate a million dollars (over $25 million today) to a campaign to eradicate hookworm from the South. In five years, hookworm in the South had almost been eradicated and others could now pick up the work that Stiles began.

For 6 years, Stiles toiled in vain. In a month, he broke through, and in 5 years, his ambition was realized. The epidemic of hookworm was a thing of the past. Millions of lives were improved and the South made a far more productive region as a result.

Why have I told you this story (which you can find in a lot more detail in Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller)? Because it illustrates that success isn’t a slow, gradual process. It’s instead a sudden strike of lightning after years of flatlining.

If success were put on a graph, it would look like a hockey stick – a gradual increase followed by a huge spike. Just when it doesn’t look like a breakthrough will ever come, it does.

The moral of the story is that you have to bust through the doubt that comes during the flatline period. It often takes years. Few people might understand your vision at first. These naysayers need to be disregarded.

That doesn’t mean you can ignore evidence your idea won’t work, though. If you’re shrinking or there’s evidence your idea is nutty, then you have a problem. If you don’t find an initial enthusiastic group of fans, even if they’re small in number, you might also have a problem. Scott Adams has a chapter in How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big about this subject.

But if you have some combination of…

Aren’t shrinking.

Have strong evidence for your idea (such as Stiles’ irrefutable evidence of hookworm).

Have some enthusiastic fans, however small.

…You’re on to something.

The question then becomes whether you’re willing to go through the long period of anemic growth before your good idea or talent meets luck and opportunity, much like Stiles’ met with Rockefeller’s associates, and suddenly, after years of stagnation, a bonfire blazed in no time. Examine the careers of successful people and this is usually the pattern.

You don’t know when the fires will be lit, but if you have a solid foundation, build the pyre. The most challenging part is that you have to expend the sweat building the pyre with no obvious payoff for a long time, because it’s usually raining outside.

You can’t control the weather, but you have to outlast it. Will you still work or go inside during the rain?

Before you answer, remember that the persuasion system in Stumped can’t make it stop raining, but it can give you an umbrella to make your work easier.

]]>http://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/02/04/breakthroughs-dont-come-gradually-but-after-long-stagnation/feed/020823 Persuasion Tricks from Trump’s First State of the Unionhttp://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/01/31/3-persuasion-tricks-from-trumps-first-state-of-the-union/
http://masculineepic.com/index.php/2018/01/31/3-persuasion-tricks-from-trumps-first-state-of-the-union/#respondThu, 01 Feb 2018 01:47:17 +0000http://masculineepic.com/?p=2077Donald Trump delivered his first State of the Union address to Congress last night. Though he addressed Congress last year, it technically wasn’t a State of the Union. The speech was highly praised, just like last year’s was. Even his critics have had to either grudgingly admit it was well-done or come up with nonsensical excuses for why it wasn’t.

What made it such a success?

#1 Liberal Use of Yes-Set Agreements

This was a pattern I noticed last year, so it’s not surprising to see it return.

The idea behind a Yes-Set agreement is that you get your prospect to agree with you, progressing in each agreement you get, starting with small items and moving on to larger ones. By putting your audience in the mood of agreement, they’re more likely to keep agreeing with you.

President Trump did a ton of it in his State of the Union. He began with things that were impossible to disagree with and then made his suggestions about what should be done. This tactic was present both in the structure of the speech itself and in specific sentences, particularly in the speech’s most controversial components – immigration and the portion about Guantanamo, as seen here:

By speaking in generalities that were impossible to disagree with and praising Mattis, a four-star general who served in the military for decades, the president made the Guantanamo quip (which would ordinarily be controversial) harder to disagree with because it followed earlier agreements.

And in general, by opening the State of the Union with the economy, jobs, and citing figures on minority unemployment which can’t be disagreed with (at best you can say the statistics are wrong, or he’s not responsible for them, but not that those things aren’t good), the audience (the American people, not Congress) was softened up to agree with more controversial things, most notably, immigration. President Trump could have opened with some platitudes before going deep into controversial, hard-hitting issues, but he didn’t.

Most people start too strong to get what they want, spoiling the mood. The president didn’t do that at last night’s State of the Union. By speaking of higher ideals and good things already done, the mood was set for doing what he wanted to do.

#2 Personalizing Everything

Perhaps my memory is fuzzy, but President Trump used gallery guests in his State of the Union better than any other such speech than I can remember.

It’s notable that having such guests at the State of the Union wasn’t the norm. Ronald Reagan, a “mater persuader” in his own right, was the first to do it.

For every major issue in the speech, from the good to the bad, Donald Trump had a guest to personalize it. The most stirring was the North Korean defector, Ji Seong-Ho, as a symbol of defiance to the North Korean regime.

Yet, the most effective was by far the parents of teenage girls murdered by MS-13 gang members who came into the country as “unaccompanied minors.”

Their presence quickly silenced the virtue signalers and open borders religionists. I shouldn’t need to explain why their being minorities made it doubly effective.

The right hasn’t done as good of a job as the left in personalizing issues over the decades. It’s a major reason why “Conservatism, Inc.” has been so ineffective. Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech is an indication that this is changing.

People forget statistics and figures. White papers don’t provoke an immediate response. Faces and people do.

#3 Structure

The structure of the State of the Union was set up to leave the best impressions. President Trump began and ended with high ideals, visual language, and a lot of the aforementioned Yes-Set agreements. By stuffing the most controversial parts of the speech in the middle, those things become harder to remember compared to the beginning and end, thanks to primacy and recency bias.

Sure, the controversial things are the things that Trump most wants to do, but would a State of the Union speech make getting those things done likelier? By itself, no. Getting as big an audience to like you so that you can exert more influence to do the deals later, however, does. Liking is one of the six universal principles of influence, and if there is one of those that Trump lacks, it’s the likability factor.

Does the State of the Union make non-fans (but not haters) more or less likely to like the president? The media’s own polls indicate the former. That’s why they’re melting down today.

Footage showing Democrats in Congress not rising and cheering for low black unemployment, the national anthem, or veterans issues helps too. You can make yourself more liked by making your opponents more unlikable. That was one of Trump’s most potent weapons in the campaign against all his opponents. He baited them into doing much of his work for him in this midterm election year and chances are, you remember it because much of it took place at the beginning and end of the speech.

President Trump delivered with his speech last night, which is why his opponents are either going crazy or trying to leak another “muh Russia” report today, which is noticeably lacking in punch compared to the one on Sessions after last year’s speech.

That’s how you know it worked.

To make your own efforts work just as well as President Trump’s last night, read Stumped, the definitive guide on the Trump persuasion system.